by Arienne Thompson, USA TODAY

by Arienne Thompson, USA TODAY

When Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's disease at the unimaginable age of 30 back in 1991, there were plenty in Hollywood who assumed his career was over.

Fortunately, they were wrong, and the actor has gone on to star in a number of films and hit TV shows like Spin City and The Good Wife since then. He even has a new eponymous comedy series coming to TV this fall.

"I had a certain fluidity to my movements and rhythm of speech and a physicality that I had depended on," he says. "It served me really well, but when that was taken away, I found that there was other stuff that I could use. That hesitation, that Parkinsonian affect, is an opportunity to just pause in a moment and collect as a character and respond to what's happening and just gave me this kind of gravitas. It really gave me a new view of things."

But that doesn't mean his Parkinson's doesn't affect his work in ways that are obviously out of his control.

"I used to be really nervous and sit in my dressing room and fret about a scene that was coming up and sweat it out and say 'What am I going to do? You say action and I have to do something. What am I going to do? And what's that actor going to do? And how do I respond to that?' And now it's just like 'Okay, what's happening?' And something happens, I react to it and if nothing happens, I don't react. I don't worry about that bit I was going to do or the look I was gonna give because when I get there I may not be able to give that look or do that thing or move that glass."